Miles & More (Lufthansa, Austrian, Swiss, and other partners) - Unbelievably bad service, worse response

On 9/8 I had a terrible experience on LH. Here is part of the letter I wrote to LH Customer Service:

I flew LH 5333 Sofia-Munich, connecting to UA 963 Munich-IAD. However, I was almost expelled from the flight (LH 5333) by the pilot for complaining about being threatened by another passenger.

Before take-off the passenger in the next seat moved his knee into the small space I had. I asked him nicely to move it so that I would be less crowded. He replied that this was not my space. I put my own knee and foot down, budging his. He then threatened me, saying, “If you touch me again, you had better watch out.” I then called a flight attendant (a tall woman wearing slacks with brown hair). She then called the pilot, who told me that I had better cooperate. I told him that the other passenger had caused the problem and he then told me: “I can believe you or I can believe him and I choose to believe him.” And the pilot had not spoken a single word to the other passenger. The flight attendant had only spoken to the other passenger and he barely responded, mostly smiling and laughing.

The pilot then said that unless I promised to cooperate, in his language, he would call the police marshalls and have me escorted off the plane. I asked him if he would demand the same of the other passenger and he only stated that he was ready to expel me from the plane. Since I had no choice but to accept his dictate, I did so and the other passenger enjoyed himself during the flight by continually poking me in the elbow. I did not complain because I feared that the pilot would call the police in Munich and have me arrested.

I told the United ground crew in Munich about this treatment and they were appalled. They could not believe that Lufthansa would treat any passenger this way, much less a 1K.

LH responded to me today:

We regret the impression you received from our crew...Lufthansa is one of the largest international air carriers in theworld, and are our customers are citizens of the many countries that we service....we respect and honor all our passengers.

...we trust that your flights with Lufthansa were otherwise pleasant and look forward to welcoming you soon again on board.


Do they read their mail? Do they care? They couldn't even spell my name right.

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UA 1K

this is a pretty awful thing to happen. Can you provide more information? Is there some reason why you believe this happened -- is it racially motivated, age, German-speaker vs. non, etc? Did the flight attendant make some unreasonable judgement as to who was "right"?

You could have done a better job with your letter I suppose. You were threatened with bodily harm - a criminal offense under German law, and the pilot dealt with this by threatening to have you arrested on arrival. I would address your letter to the chariman of LH - not its customer service department.

Thanks. I am writing to the CEO. And yes it seemed to me (obviously I have no proof) that the shared nationality of the passenger and the pilot seemed to play a role. Frankly, I was stunned. When the pilot showed up, I thought he was coming to warn the offending passenger.

There's no point getting into pissing matches with passengers like that if the plane is full. The only thing to do is to spill your drink over them at the first possible opportunity and "apologise" profusely.... http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Snoopy:
There's no point getting into pissing matches with passengers like that if the plane is full. The only thing to do is to spill your drink over them at the first possible opportunity and "apologise" profusely.... http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif</font>

I double that, and make it a piping hot black coffee... http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

Was the other passenger a german?

Hmm, I would rather change a seat, that's all.
F/A never refused reseat me (even to C) if a pax next to me smell "diferent" or behave badly. Simple.

I am quite surprised that you had a bad experience with a German (I presume) seatmate on SOF-MUC. My impressions on multiple to/from SOF flights on BA, LH and Balkan has been that my fellow Bulgarians create much more commotion than EU nationals http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif

As far as the LH pilot sticking with the German passenger, there is nothing new there. I am sure it happens less and less often, but supporting someone purely based upon a shared nationality is nothing new under the sun. Besides, if you were to expect objective, non-nationalism biased reasoning of a LH-employee, don't expect it from the pilots... They might be good at flying planes, but in my opinion have the least tact and political correctness of any staff.

What I find surprising, is that the pilot came round and threaten to call the police!!! They seem to be something missing between , you speaking your neighbour and the flight attendant calling the pilot. That generally is mostly last resort, isn't?
Was your neighbours really German? I can understand that your life was rather miserable for the rest of the journey, otherwise you would not have gone this far to write this note. but help us fill lthe gap!!